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Exclusive – Libya’s Haftar Prepares to ‘Liberate' Tripoli

Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar. (AFP)
Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar. (AFP)
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Exclusive – Libya’s Haftar Prepares to ‘Liberate' Tripoli

Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar. (AFP)
Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar. (AFP)

The Libyan National Army (LNA), commanded by Khalifa Haftar, announced on Sunday its readiness to secure any electoral process in regions under its control.

Asharq Al-Awsat also learned that the LNA was making logistic preparations to “liberate” the capital Tripoli, which had seen in recent months clashes between rival militias.

The preparations were almost complete as Haftar inaugurated ten new security and military brigades in the western region.

These developments reveal that he was secretly preparing a military offensive against Tripoli in spite of United Nations and western efforts to reach a political settlement in the country.

Sources close to Haftar told Asharq Al-Awsat that the ten brigades were highly trained and six of them are deployed in the eastern Benghazi region.

They revealed that a meeting was recently held by a number of LNA officers to discuss the situation in Tripoli and the western region as a whole.

They added that LNA units affiliated with the general command “were prepared to carry out any order.”

“No order has yet been given for them to act,” they said.

Haftar had declared in September that “liberating Tripoli was an unavoidable option.”

“One can no longer remain silent over the situation there,” he had said of the clashes that pitted militias, which are mostly affiliated with the Government of National Accord of Fayez al-Sarraj, against each other.

Addressing the elections, the LNA said Sunday that securing the electoral process was part if its national and constitutional duties.

It stressed that it was concerned with protecting the democratic process and peaceful transition of power in Libya.

France and the UN mission in Libya had backed down from their plans to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in Libya in December in wake of the ongoing political and security complications in the country.

Separately, UN special envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame held talks in Cairo on Sunday with Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit.

Informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Egypt will receive in upcoming days a number of Libyan officials in its attempt to achieve rapprochement between rival powers.

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Arab World

‘Shockingly High’ Number of Gaza Children Still Acutely Malnourished After Truce, UN Says 

Displaced Palestinian students attend class at a tent school in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 09 December 2025. (EPA)
Displaced Palestinian students attend class at a tent school in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 09 December 2025. (EPA)
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‘Shockingly High’ Number of Gaza Children Still Acutely Malnourished After Truce, UN Says 

Displaced Palestinian students attend class at a tent school in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 09 December 2025. (EPA)
Displaced Palestinian students attend class at a tent school in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 09 December 2025. (EPA)

Thousands of children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition in Gaza since an October ceasefire that was supposed to enable a major increase in humanitarian aid, the UN children's agency said on Tuesday.

UNICEF, the biggest provider of malnutrition treatment in Gaza, said that 9,300 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition in October, when the first phase of an agreement to end the two-year Israel-Hamas war came into effect.

While this is down from a peak of over 14,000 in August, the number is still significantly higher than during a brief February-March ceasefire and indicates that aid flows remain insufficient, UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram told a Geneva press briefing by video link from Gaza.

"It's still a shockingly high number," she said. "The number of children admitted is five times higher than in February, so we need to see the numbers come down further."

Ingram described meeting underweight babies weighing less than 1 kilogram born in hospitals "their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive."

UNICEF is able to import considerably more aid into the enclave than it was before the October 10 agreement, but obstacles remain, she said, citing delays and denials of cargoes at crossings, route closures and ongoing security challenges.

"We have seen some improvement, but we continue to call for all of the available crossings into the Gaza Strip to be open," she added.

There are not enough commercial supplies entering Gaza, she added, saying that meat was still prohibitively expensive at around $20 a kilogram.

"Most families can't access this, and that's why we're still seeing high rates of malnutrition," she said.

In August, a UN-backed hunger monitor determined that famine conditions were affecting about half a million people - or a quarter of Gaza's population.

Children were severely affected by hunger as the war progressed, with experts warning that the effects could cause lasting damage.

Arab World

Sudan’s RSF Advances Could Trigger New Refugee Exodus, UNHCR Chief Warns 

Women displaced from el-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in al-Dabba, in Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP)
Women displaced from el-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in al-Dabba, in Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP)
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Sudan’s RSF Advances Could Trigger New Refugee Exodus, UNHCR Chief Warns 

Women displaced from el-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in al-Dabba, in Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP)
Women displaced from el-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in al-Dabba, in Sudan's Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP)

Advances by paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan could trigger another exodus across the country's borders, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, told Reuters.

The RSF took over Darfur's city of el-Fasher in late October in one of its biggest gains of the 2-1/2-year war with Sudan's army. This month, advances have continued eastward into the Kordofan region and they seized the country's biggest oil field.

Most of the estimated 40,000 people that the United Nations says have been displaced by the latest violence in Kordofan - a region comprised of three states in central and southern Sudan - have sought refuge within the country, Grandi said, but that could change if violence spreads to a large city like El Obeid.

"If that were to be - not necessarily taken - but engulfed by the war, I am pretty sure we would see more exodus," said Grandi in an interview from Port Sudan late on Monday.

"We have to remain...very alert in neighboring countries in case this happens," he said.

MILLIONS HOMELESS

Already, the war has uprooted nearly 12 million people, including 4.3 million who have fled across borders to Chad, South Sudan and elsewhere, in the world's biggest displacement crisis. However, some have returned to the capital Khartoum, which is now back in Sudanese army control.

Humanitarian workers lack resources to help those fleeing, many of whom have been raped, robbed or bereaved by the violence, said Grandi, who met with survivors who fled mass killings in el-Fasher.

"We are barely responding," said Grandi, referring to a Sudan response plan, which is just a third funded largely due to Western donor cuts. UNHCR lacks resources to relocate Sudanese refugees from an unstable area along Chad's border, he said.

FAMILIES TORN APART BY CONFLICT

Most of those who trekked hundreds of kilometers from el-Fasher and Kordofan to Sudan’s al-Dabba camp on the banks of the Nile north of Khartoum, which Grandi visited last week, are women and children. Their husbands and sons were killed or conscripted along the way.

Some mothers said they disguised their sons as girls to protect them from being abducted by fighters, Grandi said.

"Even fleeing is difficult because people are continuously stopped by the militias," he said.

Grandi began his UNHCR career in Khartoum in the 1980s, when Sudan sheltered refugees from other African wars. He is on his last trip as UNHCR chief before his term ends this month. A successor has yet to be named from over a dozen candidates.

Arab World

International Court Sentences Sudanese Militia Leader to 20 Years in Prison for Darfur Atrocities

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, a leader of the Sudanese Janjaweed militia, at the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, Pool)
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, a leader of the Sudanese Janjaweed militia, at the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, Pool)
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International Court Sentences Sudanese Militia Leader to 20 Years in Prison for Darfur Atrocities

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, a leader of the Sudanese Janjaweed militia, at the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, Pool)
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, a leader of the Sudanese Janjaweed militia, at the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, Pool)

Judges at the International Criminal Court sentenced a leader of the feared Sudanese Janjaweed militia to 20 years imprisonment Tuesday for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the catastrophic conflict in Darfur more than 20 years ago.

At a hearing last month, prosecutors sought a life sentence for Ali Muhammad Ali Abd–Al-Rahman who was convicted in October of 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity that included ordering mass executions and bludgeoning two prisoners to death with an ax in 2003-2004, The Associated Press said.

“He committed these crimes knowingly, wilfully, and with, the evidence shows, enthusiasm and vigor,” prosecutor Julian Nicholls told judges at the sentencing hearing in November.

Abd-Al-Rahman, 76, stood and listened, but showed no reaction as Presiding Judge Joanna Korner passed the sentence.